With his family still in New Zealand, Dexter Dunn is truly isolated in New Jersey as the world weathers the spread of the novel coronavirus. But the 30-year-old driver is maintaining good spirits, especially in the wake of a sparkling 2019 campaign.
On Saturday (April 11), with the aid of modern technology, Dunn caught up with Greg O'Connor in TAB New Zealand's "Isolation Interview" series, discussing the current pause of the North American racing season and looking back on Dunn's watershed 2019 year — his first complete year of competition in the States.
"This is a trying time; I'm doing okay," Dunn related. "It's going pretty slowly, but I'm getting through it okay."
Despite harness racing through most of North America having been shut down for the better part of a month, and despite his young daughter, Mila, located halfway around the world, Dunn is still keeping active, going training trips with Chris Ryder's horses once weekly and staying connected with friend and neighbour Andy McCarthy and his family on a consistent basis.
"Obviously, there's a lot of Kiwis and Aussies over here, so it's not too bad," Dunn said of the harness racing community in central New Jersey. "I think we're all looking forward to it being over, but it is what it is. It's out of our control; you've just got to deal with it the best you can."
Fortunately for Dunn, he's coming off a very successful inaugural campaign in North America, banking over $12 million in purses and winning two Breeders Crowns at Woodbine Mohawk Park — with Richard 'Nifty' Norman trainee Amigo Volo in the two-year-old trotting division, and with distaff trotter Manchego for trainer Nancy Takter. But his greatest success last year very well came with a pacer trained by fellow New Zealand native Chris Ryder: Bettors Wish.
"It was a great season," Dunn recounted of Bettors Wish's three-year-old season, during which his 13 wins included the Art Rooney Pace, the Milstein Memorial, the Matron Stakes, and a pair of Grand Circuit wins at The Red Mile.
"He's not very big — he's a pretty small horse, but he's got a tremendous will to win, heart and ability. He was tough. He was pretty unlucky in some of the big races — second in the North America Cup, Meadowlands Pace and Breeders Crown, but it was special to sit behind a three-year-old like that. And obviously, for everything Chris Ryder has done for me to be associated with a great horse for him too was extra special."
Ryder was instrumental in facilitating Dunn's transpacific move, which occurred in August 2018 — seven years after Dunn first drove on American soil in an installment of the World Driving Championship. That move was the realization of a childhood dream for Dunn.
"I grew up in horse racing with my family. Ever since I was a young kid, I was fascinated by the American racing. I got a little taste of it in 2011 for a few months, and that was like a little bit of a holiday. When I came over this time in 2019, I really wanted to work hard and not make it a holiday. I wanted to take my best shot at it and see how it went. Completely didn't expect for it to go as good as it did! But to drive against great drivers over here, it's pretty cool."
As far as when things will return to normal?
"No one's really got a certain answer to that. We've probably been lucky over here to the effect that all the horses have still been in training."